San Diego State University will make its first attempt on Saturday to break the sound barrier with an 18-foot rocket designed and built by student engineers.

The handcrafted rocket, named Swiss Miss, is scheduled to soar into the atmosphere from a wind-swept spot in the Mojave Desert, north of Edwards Air Force Base. The site, known as the Friends of Amateur Rocketry launch facility, has long been used as the testing grounds for amateur and experimental rockets.

Swiss Miss was successfully launched in October 2012, rising to a peak altitude of 10,100 feet while achieving speeds up to Mach 0.8. The university's New Rocket Project club will attempt to have the rocket rise by at least twice that high on Saturday, and to have it hit Mach 1.2. Supersonic fins were added to the rocket to increase its speed.

As a liquid-fuel rocket, Swiss Miss burns ethyl alcohol and liquid oxygen. Its launch and data systems are largely controlled by an Android cellphone.

The launch "is a way to learn more about the engineering field as a whole," said Annah Rulon, who is studying environmental engineering at San Diego State. "We get to practice every step of the engineering process, from design to implementation. We get to work as a team and meet other motivated engineers. We get the opportunity to see our creation literally take flight. We get to experience that feeling of accomplishment that comes with seeing something you planned and designed actually work."

The rocket team typically works with 20 to 30 students, including many who will make the 220-mile trip Saturday to the Mojave Desert, one of the world's most famous flight-testing grounds. The Mojave has been used to fly everything from SpaceShipOne, the first private manned space plane, to Northrop Grumman's X-47B drone, which on Tuesday became the first vehicle of its kind to be catapulted off an aircraft carrier.